But Ryan is again on a 30-goal pace after a brutally slow start. After spending a good deal of time away from them earlier this season, the skilled sniper has been reunited with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry to form the club's top line.

Usually the shooter among the trio, Ryan talked about how he's learned how to mesh his stickhandling game over time with that of Getzlaf and Perry.

"You learn to give and take with each other," he said. "You learn where each other's strengths and weaknesses are. I know Getz is best when he's on his backhand and he's coming from below the goal line. And Pears is best with the puck in front of the net in that five-, 10-foot circle. And I'm probably at my best in the high neutral zone getting ready to skate in and shoot.

"We know we can't all have [the puck] at the same time. But we're figured it out. It's amazing that every year it takes us a little bit to figure it out all over again and that we can't all have it. We have to share it and we have to make sure we're sharing it in the right away. So our cycle game has gone up the right way because of it."

The three have always played a game where they often cycled the puck between each other in the corners and behind the net in the offensive zone. Little is different there but Ryan said he does notice a little difference there in the transition behind the bench from Randy Carlyle to Bruce Boudreau.

"Randy always gave us the freedom from below the top of the circle," Ryan said. "That hasn't changed. I do think we're taking chances a little bit more and we're taking the puck to the net a little bit more.

"A lot of times our line just was happy trying to shut down the other team's top line instead of scoring and owning the ice. We've tried to do both the past eight, nine games and we've found a little bit of comfort in it. So it's something that we're going to try to do work on."

Boudreau believes that Ryan is a much more confident player these days.

"He seems to be enjoying the game," Boudreau said. "He's super skilled, you can see that. Everybody can see that. I think he feels good about himself these days. When you do that and you come to the rink and you're feeling good about yourself, you play."

As far as the rumors, Ryan said he and Ducks GM Bob Murray have not talked to smooth things over after the speculation of his depature peaked in late November before Murray fired Carlyle.

"Actually, I think when Bruce came in, I felt a little bit more relieved because I thought maybe that's the only big change we'll make and you hope that's the only big change. You never want to see anybody go. I just took that as a sign that okay you're going to be a Duck.

"If things get together here and you learn under Bruce and you buy into this system, things are going to be better. It stared to change. You can feel it in the room. Since he's been here, personally I've played a lot better. Hopefully the rumors can be put to an end at some point here."

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